For The Nights I Can't Remember
by shawn-n-belle
Summary: /I'm not alive if I'm lonely so please don't leave/  Arizona's coming home just as Callie is moving on. But, for how long can you lie to yourself about the one you are meant to be with?


For The Nights I Can't Remember

**Tagline: **"And I do wanna love you and if you see me running back and I do wanna try. If falling for you girl is crazy, then I'm going out of my mind."

**Summary: **|I'm not alive if I'm lonely so please don't leave| Arizona's coming home just as Callie is moving on. But, for how long can you lie to yourself about the one you are meant to be with?

**Spoilers: **Everything up to 7X09

**Pairing: **Callie/Arizona. Mentions of Callie/Mark.

**Rated: **PG-13

**Disclaimer: **All television shows, movies, books and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings and events thereof, are properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.

**Author's Note: **I'm not sure if this is going to be a chapter fic or if this is just going to be a stand alone one shot. This is just a plot bunny that has been floating around in my head since I saw the promo and I decided to enter the Out Of Africa contest on the community. I'm not very fond of this one, but perhaps you'll like it. Aha. I'm beginning to realize that I'm my own worst critic. So, I'll just shut up and let you tell me.

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The remnants of tequila still dance upon her perfect lips that attempt to turn upward in a smile as her hips sway in rhythm with the song. The fabric of her grey shirt hugs upon her infamous Latina curves, her raven black curls hanging in gentle waves upon her broad shoulders, framing her delicate face so perfectly. She must admit, the break up haircut is serving her well, after all, it's sexy and hot. Taking another long swig of the tequila in her hands, she swallows the burning alcohol in a gulp, allowing it burn down her throat. She would have cringed had she been able to feel it, but quite frankly, Calliope Torres hasn't been able to feel much of anything these days. Not since the woman, _her _woman, left her that night in the airport terminal for Africa, dragging her heart along with her.

She moped for a while. Cried. Stayed in bed for days and nights on end, unable to do anything but replay the event over and over again in her head. She got angry, started throwing and breaking things because how dare she? How dare she just walk away from her, after all they have been through, because of a stupid grant? But now, now she has accepted it. Come to terms with the break up, with the absence of Arizona Robbins in her life. Now, she is finally letting her go, letting go of the future that she envisioned for the two of them, letting go of every memory, of every tear tucked away somewhere inside of her, letting go of every heart beat that tries to convince her that she is in love with someone thousand of miles away.

Tonight, Calliope Torres is moving on. Tonight she is forgetting all about Arizona Robbins, her icy blue orbs, her playful dimples, her melodic voice, her soft touches, the way her hips sway against hers, the way her naked skin feels upon her fingertips and the way that she always knows exactly what to say to keep her from falling apart. Tonight, she is going to try her damnedest to erase her from her memory and from her heart, even if it is the last thing that she will ever do.

_But tonight is the night  
We can really let go  
My girlfriend is out of town  
And I'm all alone  
Your boyfriend is on vacation  
And he doesn't have to know  
No oh oh, oh oh  
No one can do the things I'm gonna wanna do to you  
_

Twirling around in her living room, she loses herself in the melody of the music, drifting away in the rhythm, the beats, the sound of Enrique's voice calling to her. Placing the bottle against her lips, she takes another long, steady drink with a drunken giggle as some dribbles from the corner of her mouth. Her eyes flicker upward from the bottle to watch as Mark Sloan exits from her bathroom, a large smile upon his face when he notices the scene bestrewed in front of him. The hot, beautiful mess of Calliope, dancing to her own beat, traveling down her own path.

_Baby I like it  
The way you move on the floor  
Baby I like it  
Come on and give me some more  
Oh yes I like it  
Screaming like never before  
Baby I like it  
I, I, I like it._

She sits the bottle of tequila down upon the kitchen counter as she reaches out for his hand, a smile upon her face and a rush of desire and rebellion written within her auburn eyes. His hand is large, she notices as he intertwines his fingers around hers, practically swallowing her own, nothing like Arizona's whose had been perfectly shaped for her. Swallowing back the memory of her soft touch with a distant sigh, Calliope allows her fingers to trace over Mark's broad chest, gnawing on the inside of her jaw to keep the memories at bay. She dances around him, her hips against his as she threads her fingers around his neck and he smiles down at her, encouraging her to continue as his hands slip down her arms and onto her hips. _Arizona_. She gulps back the heart wrenching pain with a forced chuckle and a bat of her long eyelashes that she knows must melt Mark. She must forget about her, she just has to, if she ever wants to be whole again.

_Girl please excuse me  
If I'm misbehaving, oh  
I'm trying keep my hands off  
But you're begging me for more  
Round round round  
Give a low low low  
Let the time time pass  
'Cause we're never getting old  
No oh oh, oh oh  
No one can do it better turn around I'll give you more  
No oh oh, oh oh  
Shout aloud, screaming loud_

Staring up at Mark, she contemplates her decision. He is her best friend, the best friend who told her that going to Africa was a bad idea, the best friend who holds her when she cries and promises her that everything is going to be okay. The best friend who went out with Arizona, even though the two despise each other, because she asked him to. The best friend who would turn the world upside down for her if she ever needed anything. Mark loves her and she knows that maybe, just maybe, if she tried hard enough, she could learn to love him like that, too.

"Have I told you that your breakup hair is hot?" Mark asks in a husky voice, his infamous smirk curling upon his lips. He frees one hand from her hip to brush a stray curl away from her face, his skin meeting hers and she swallows hard. It would be an action like this with Arizona that would create her breath to halt within her chest and count every beat of her heart that told her that she was the only one for her. Now, as he strokes her cheek with his thumb, all she can do is think about those icy blue eyes and the way that they could see straight through and into her soul.

"Several times, yes. But thank you," Callie forces a smile at him. Break up hair. Arizona will kill her when she returns in three months and finds those long locks cut short, streaked with blue. She can hear her now, "You shouldn't have cut your hair for me" in her bubbly voice and she will look at her with those pleading blue eyes that cut her to the core.

"I don't know what Robbins was thinking leaving you for three years. I think she's taken one too many falls on those wheelies in her life," Mark jokes with a laugh and she forces her own snort of a chuckle, although the voices in her head disagree with her. Doesn't he see it? The reason that she left? She had every right to leave her that night, and despite what every one must think of her, she loves her more for doing what she did that night.

"Mark, please," Until those words escaped from her lips, Calliope had not realized how desperate she had been for this situation to change, how hard she had been wishing that when she opened her eyes, it would be Arizona who was holding her instead of Mark. Mark scoffs in a hurtful sigh, allowing his thumb to brush careful shapes into her cheek, catching her auburn eyes as the smirk falls from his face and a sudden wave of seriousness rushes over him.

"I'm just saying. You are sexy as hell and you have the best heart of anyone that I know. You are perfect and for her to just walk away from you to save those tiny kids in Africa for the next three years, she must be out of her damn mind. Because if I had a girl like you, I wouldn't leave her for three years, no matter what kind of grant or how much money the hospital tried to give me," There it is, she gulps. The truth that she has desperately been trying so hard to ignore since that night at Cristina's when she drunkenly asked him if she could move in with him.

"My Callie," He whispers and her stomach churns at the sound of it as it falls from his lips. No, she clinches her eyes tightly as she forces back the tears. She isn't his Callie, she is _Arizona's_ Calliope. Or was, she sighs. She has to let that go, let her go and she is beginning to realize that perhaps she can let her go with Mark.

"M-Mark," She swallows the cry in her throat as her heart calls out for the blond thousands of miles away in Malawi, Africa tonight. Roughly, his lips collide with hers, his hands curving around her waist as he pulls her into him and her mind races in a thousand different directions as she forces herself to kiss him back. His tongue traces her lips as her stomach churns in disgust, the bile rising in her throat. His face is stubbly with the attempts of growing a beard instead of soft and baby smooth like Arizona's, his lips is hard and conniving instead of playful and warm like Arizona's. Kissing him now, her mind flashes back to their last kiss, if she had known it would have been their last, she would have savored it. Memorized the way that her lips felt against hers, inhaled her scent and made the moment last a little while longer.

"So hot. So, so hot," Mark mumbles against her lips, pushing himself into her as he corners her against the kitchen counter, one arm holding them in place as the other inches up her shirt. He doesn't ask, unlike Arizona, she sighs inwardly. Arizona always asks, always make sure that it's okay, always tells her that she is beautiful and that she loves her. Tumbling her grey shirt onto the floor as his cold fingers press into the arch of her back, Calliope can not control it anymore. No matter how many times he touches her, no matter how many times he kisses her, she will never be able to trick her heart into believing it is Arizona or to get over Arizona. Because no matter how hard she tries to learn to love him, no matter how many times she convinces herself it is the right thing, Mark Sloan is all wrong for her.

"C-Calliope," A strangled cry of familiarity echoes through her apartment, snapping both Mark and Callie out of their fantasy. Pulling out of the kiss, Calliope's auburn eyes tear through the apartment until they find a very pale Arizona standing in her doorway, tears flooding openly down her cheeks, her mouth slightly ajar. Instantly her heart sinks in her chest, her stomach tightening at the sight of the amount of hurt suddenly enstilled upon the blond Peds surgeon.

"A-Arizona?" It stumbles from her lips in a stuttering cry of disbelief and shock as she takes a small step toward the woman she last saw getting on a plane for Africa three weeks ago. Arizona shakes her head slightly, a cry falling from within her as her face threatens to crumble upon witnessing this.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I have to..." Stumbling, Arizona backs out of the apartment and disappears quickly out the door. Dumbstruck, Callie's tear filled eyes meet Mark's as her lips move in a desperate attempt to find the words and yet none escape her. Instead, she only bends down, picking up her shirt before quickly dressing herself once again in a fumbling hurry. Grabbing her keys from the counter, she starts out after her, only to be caught by Mark's hand upon her wrist.

"She's back? She's back and you're just... what? You're going to race after her? Even though she left you in an airport terminal for possibly three years to save kids in Africa? She left you and you're just going to run after her?" Mark snaps, wrinkling his brow in confusion, clearly hurt by this decision. She stops for a moment with a sigh, running her fingers through her disheveled mess of raven black curls with a soft, barely noticeable shrug of her shoulders.

"I'm sorry but I...I have to go," Callie whispers, placing her hand compassionately upon his shoulder before she, too, disappears.

* * *

–

"Arizona! Arizona! Wait!" Callie exclaims, dashing down the hallway after the curly blond woman who is mumbling and ranting incoherently to herself. She smiles inwardly, swallowing the laugh in her throat. She's missed it, she sighs. The ranting, the mumbling, the speed in which she thinks her thoughts out loud. She's missed everything. She has missed _her_.

"Arizona! Please! You came all this way! The least we can do is talk! It's not what it looks like!" Callie calls out to her, her voice echoing with surprise and despair and suddenly, Arizona finds herself immovable. Standing with her back to her ex girlfriend, Arizona rakes her fingers through her hair as she tries to slow the racing of her heart in her chest. Softly, Calliope's footsteps approach her, one after another, after another, in careful measurements with one another. Fighting back the bitter tears in her eyes, the blond turns in a snap toward the Latina, her icy blue orbs flashing with the utmost pain and hurt that it nearly brings Calliope to her knees. How could this have happened?

"I know that I told you to move on and I know that I told you to be happy but... Mark. Fucking _Mark?_! It sure as hell didn't take you long, did it? I expected you to move on in a month, maybe two because what we had? It was amazing. Once in a lifetime. But three weeks? Three weeks and you're already fuck buddies with Mark Sloan. And I flew all the way back to see this? I'm such an idiot!" Arizona snaps, her voice taking a new level of hurt and bitterness that it cuts Callie to the core of everything that she is.

"No! Oh, no! You... you do not get to do this! You do not get to do this, do you hear me, Arizona Robbins? You left me. You fucking left me standing in an airport! You left me for Africa and your precious Carter Mason grant. You do not get to just show up here unexpectedly and bitch at me for trying to move on. You told me that you wanted me to be, well maybe Mark makes me happy!" Calliope yells back, challenging Arizona who only scoffs with a hard roll of her eyes.

"Yeah, I bet. He sleeps with all the nurses, did you know that? But I guess you _did _know that. God, I can't believe that I was right about you," Arizona replies bitterly. That's when Calliope sees it. The paleness of her skin, the dark circles under her eyes, the absence of the sparkle of wonder and innocence within the blue swirls of her eyes. She is hurt, but there is something else, something by far worse going on inside of her, other than just seeing Mark Sloan touching her.

"Care to enlighten me?" Callie challenges, crossing her arms over her chest. Snorting a laugh, Arizona only shakes her head, staring upward at the midnight sky that now reflects across the city of Seattle, every star shinning brightly against the darkness. Yet, no matter how perfectly they shinned, they could never compare to the beauty that is standing in front of her. And even though, they are literally standing outside, _screaming_ at each other, she still loves Calliope Iphigenia Torres more than anything or any one in this entire world.

"That I'm not George O'Malley, or Erica Hahn or Mark Sloan. Three weeks and you're already sleeping with someone else. You love love, Callie. And that's great. That's just.. awesome that you do. But you don't love me. At least, not anymore," Arizona replies in a shrug, her voice cracking as the tears appear within her eyes, breaking free as they collide down her cheeks in a desperate attempt to show the woman her breaking heart. Dumbfounded, Calliope only stands, her mouth slightly ajar, taken aback by the situation that she now finds herself in.

"H-how can you say that? After everything we have been through, how can you say that? You're scared and you're hurt so you are picking a fight and I get that, I understand that, but how can you say that? After the shooting, after... _everything_, how can you say I don't love you? You don't mean that. You know how I know that? Because the way that you are looking at me. You know that I love you. You know that I am in love with you. And you also know that I've been in love with you every single day that you have been away. What happened tonight was... I'm a little drunk and he was... how could you? How could you get on that plane _without_ me? How could you just.. leave me behind? After everything? How could you just..Arizona.. how..." But the words fail her now. She has envisioned this moment several times since she watched the airplane lift up that night . Would she scream at her? Would she cry? Would she want to punch her? Would she tell her she hates her? Now that the moment has come, however, she isn't sure what to do because her heart is too busy leaping for joy in her chest at the fact that the love of her life has came home.

"I received the Carter Mason grant, Calliope. I couldn't just turn that down," Arizona sighs.

"Oh, but you **could **turn me, your girlfriend, down for three years? Three whole years, Arizona?" It is Callie's turn to be angry now, as the hostility echoes through her voice. Arizona lets out a disheartening sigh, biting her bottom lip with a simple shrug of her shoulders, tossing her head back to stare up at the stars that spell out the name of her and Calliope. How could this be happening? How could everything that ever meant anything to her be falling apart?

"We are standing here, _screaming _at each other, Calliope. Clearly, neither one of us are capable of talking to each other right now. I'm sorry that I showed up here unexpectedly, I wanted to surprise you, I hadn't expected to... as long as you are happy, that's all that matters to me," Arizona sighs, turning to leave but she can't. She can not force her feet to walk away from the Latina again, she can not force herself to leave her behind without a word once again. Instead, she only stands, silently crying the tears for the woman who still holds every piece of her heart, the only woman that she is meant to spend the rest of her life with.

"Three years. You're back. Why.. why are you back so soon?" Callie asks, taking a step toward her ex-girlfriend and Arizona turns to face her, swallowing the cry back in her throat. Didn't she see it? Didn't she see the way that it was killing her? Didn't she see the way that it was eating her away inside to see her now?

"Ever since I started working in Peds, I always wanted to win the Carter Mason grant. It is so rare that any one ever really wins it, at least, any one in Peds. I always said that kids out there needed that money, kids who can't afford proper heath care. It was always my dream to fly to a place like Africa, where kids are literally dying by the dozen every day because they don't have a doctor who can help them. I applied for that grant my first day at Seattle, because I didn't think that I would be staying that long away. I had only signed for three months, just till Dr. Webber found someone else. Then... then I saw you. I watched you in your surgeries, you were... you are such a rock star. People talked and I knew that I had to know you. I kissed you that night at Joe's and.." Arizona's voice trails off as she counts the colors that fill Calliope's eyes.

"I fell in love with you. I am in love with you. Suddenly, my dream changed. It wasn't about spending my life in Africa but it became about growing old with you. Buying a big house and a dog and some chickens maybe. My dream became asking you to be my wife and marrying you in front of our friends and family. My dream became bringing life into this world with you, having our children and watching them grow. Teaching them right and wrong. You. You are my dream. Not Africa. So, when you go to someplace like Africa without your dream, without your heart, it becomes a punishment, a nightmare, a haunting. I gave up the Carter Mason Grant, Calliope. Because I want _you_," Arizona cries. And suddenly it all falls away. The hurt. The anger. The absence. Suddenly, nothing else matters except the blond in front of her and the heart that she is holding outstretched in the palm of her hand. They aren't back together, they aren't a couple and they certainly aren't fixed, but for right now they are okay. For right now, they are no longer broken.

"Arizona," Breathlessly, she does the only thing that she knows how to do. Closing the space between the two estranged lovers, she reaches forward, cupping Arizona's flawless face within her hand, smiling at her as she finds herself in the reflection of her eyes, "you came back. You came _home_. I-I love you." Instantly, her lips collide with hers and her heart screams at the familiarity, at the comfort, at the passion of the moment. Arizona's fingers tangle in her hair as their bodies become woven together in a mess of passionate love. Her tongue flickers over her lips before she pulls away, leaving their foreheads together as she labors to catch her breath, the tears clouding her vision. Pulling away, she glances up at Callie, closing her eyes tightly as the tears burn within her. She stumbles, beginning to shake within Callie's arms, her body riveting with trembles as she sucks in a hard breath.

"There's something I have to tell you, Calliope," Arizona begins, and Callie's eager eyes stare into hers, holding the trembling body within her arms as Arizona struggles desperately to find a breath, "I'm... I'm sick." And everything falls away around Calliope as those two words echo through her head, breaking her heart all over. Sniffling, Arizona wraps her arms around Callie, holding her close as her body trembles against hers. _I'm sick_.

"Oh my God," Callie whispers breathlessly.

* * *

I really, **really**, care what you think. Please share.


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